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Is it welding simulation or a video game?

By Junde Xu on Saturday, June 26th, 2010

Do you know why car race video games entertain you and how they work?

Don’t have immediate answers? Let me tell you. The car race games are actually computer programs which calculate the distances and the angles of roadside objects and show them on monitors. The modern computer is capable of performing millions of calculations per second to show the gradual change of the distances and the angles, making you feel you are in a moving car rather than in front of a computer or a game machine.

Welding simulation is similar to car race games such that it evaluates a welding process by analyzing the fundamental physics involved in the process. For example, in arc welding, localized intense heat is applied which causes the melting of the workpiece. This generates a non-uniform temperature field and results in structural distortion in the welded workpiece. Here, the fundamental physics includes heat transfer, thermal expansion, phase transformation, and deformation. EWI has devoted a great effort in developing welding simulation tools to investigate issues related to the joining process, such as
– Heat transfer in workpiece, including
o Temperature history
o Peak temperature and reheating temperature in multi-pass welding
o Backside temperature
– Welding induced structural distortion
– Optimal sequence for multi-pass welding
– Microstructure and hardness

Based on the above work, EWI has developed an on-line welding analysis tool, EWI WeldPredictor. It is Free for members to use. For product details, please click here
Non-members can contact us at jxu@ewi.org or yyang@ewi.org to obtain limited free trials.